Ham!
by johnwatsonswindmachine
Summary: I had a dream where Sherlock was furious with John for allowing Sherlock to be in the same building as ham, and, like any responsible Sherlockian, I wrote a fic about it. Crack, obviously. ETA: Dear readers, reviewers, and favoriters: I love you!


Sherlock stood in front of the thrumming refrigerator unit, calculating. Dozens of containers of milk sat on the shelves in front of him, but which one to pick? Certainly not one from the middle rows – they would certainly be the oldest ones, the ones the store was trying to get rid of before they went bad. The row at his feet had a slightly off colour, a clear sign of contamination. His eyes flicked back and forth between two liters at eye-level. The yellower one came from a Jersey cow, and thus had a slightly higher fat content than the Hershire milk sitting next to it. But which was preferable?

He was pulled out of his deductions by sound of John at his shoulder. "Alright, I've got the tea, and if you're done deducing the milk, the only thing left on the list is the jam." Sherlock grunted his assent and reached for the Hershire milk. "Might grab some ham, too," continued John.

Sherlock froze for a moment, then whirled and crouched, back to the milk, eyes darting wildly. Without thinking, John mirrored him. "What is it, Sherlock?" he whispered, scanning the store for threats. He couldn't find any.

"Ham, John! There's HAM here!" hissed Sherlock. John frowned, looking at Sherlock like the detective was mad, then straightened out of his defensive stance, conscious now of the staring shoppers. "Of course there's ham here. It's a grocery store, Sherlock. It's where they sell food."

Sherlock's head whipped up. "You _knew?_ You _knew_ there was ham here, and you let me walk in here?" John gaped at Sherlock for a moment, then shook his head. "Sherlock. It's ham. It's a deli meat, not a deranged killer." Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "How do you know?" John barked out a laugh, then stopped. "Oh god, you're serious. And you're shaking. Sherlock, are you actually _afraid_ of ham?"

Sherlock looked straight at John, his frosty eyes pinning the doctor in place. "More than anything in the world." John went back to gaping. "Come on, John, we have to move. It's not safe here," Sherlock whispered urgently. Still crouched, Sherlock began to move down the aisle, ducking behind displays, darting across open spaces. John, still shaking his head in disbelief, ambled slowly behind him.

Much to Sherlock's dismay, the store was laid out so shoppers had to pass by the deli to exit. Sherlock hunkered down in the produce section, taking cover behind a large display of tomatoes. "There's no use, John. We have to go out the front doors. Who knows what's in the back room? I'm not going to run into a potential ambush. No, we'll just have to risk it. Do you have your gun?"

John thought he couldn't gape more emphatically, but he was wrong. "Do I have my gun? Are you mad? It's ham, Sherlock! You don't need to shoot it! It's dead! It's perfectly safe!" Sherlock threw up his hands in an impressive mimicry of a drugged John in the Baskerville lab. "NOOO IT'S NOT! IT'S HAM! IT'S NOT SAFE!"

John looked around anxiously. Shoppers were pointing and staring, and burly security guards were heading their way. "It's okay, it's okay. I'm his doctor. It's okay," John reassured them. Suddenly he heard a series of squishy thumps behind him. Sherlock was flinging tomatoes at the deli case. "C'mon, John! We have to go!" The detective ran toward the entrance, grabbing cans from their shelves as he went and flinging them at the deli case containing the ham. "JOHN! COME ON! I'LL COVER YOU!" Sherlock bellowed, standing now just inside the doors. John sighed and jogged over to Sherlock, who was flinging anything he could grab at the ham. Once John reached the street, Sherlock dashed outside and streaked away in the direction of Baker Street, shoving people aside without a second thought as he continued his desperate flight, long coat flapping in the wind. Mycroft's words, uttered so long ago, echoed in John's ears.

"He does love to be dramatic."


End file.
